


all's well that ends well (to end up with you)

by Florchis



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angel/Demon Relationship, Good Omens AU, Idiots in Love, Long Live Feedback Comment Project, Love Confessions, M/M, Misunderstandings, Promptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 05:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21049070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/pseuds/Florchis
Summary: Being an angel and a demon, sometimes Fitz and Hunter have differences in opinion. Such as one of them thinking the other doesn't love him back, and the other one thinking they have been anything short of married for a couple of centuries. {A Fitzhunter sort-of Good Omens AU}





	all's well that ends well (to end up with you)

After Armagedon’t and surviving certain annihilation, one would expect things to change, but they mostly don’t.

Kudos to Daisy, of course, who tried her best to get things back to the way they were before the world almost ended, full restoration of Fitz’s blueprints included and much appreciated. Things are back on track, and the problem with being back on track is exactly that,  _ the tracks. _ The fixed path ahead, as long as the sight can follow it. No surprises. No detours. No changes. 

_ You should be relieved _ , says Hunter with a side-eye.  _ You use the same ties I gifted you half a century ago, Fitz. You _ hate _ change _ . Fitz squirms and doesn’t know how to explain to him that he would have liked everything back to its place except for this  _ tiny little thing, _ thank you very much. He knows he is being entitled and difficult, so he just grumbles to himself and says nothing of the sort.  _ It is not very angelic of you to complain _ , says a little voice inside his mind that sounds way too much like Hunter for his own comfort. Fitz would gladly throw something at the voice’s metaphorical head, no matter how very unangelic that could be considered. 

Because among all the things that don’t change after Armageddon, there is Hunter’s love for him or lack thereof.

* * *

One of the very few things that do change is the amount of time they spend together. Sure, they have been close for half a millennia and close  _ close  _ for a century at least, but post-Armageddon is like they cannot bear the idea of parting ways. 

Fitz finds Hunter lazing around on his own couch every morning, and every evening he is nursing a scotch on a stool in Hunter’s pub, to the point that regular customers have already started tipping their hats at him. He finds himself being dragged to football matches, to try new ice creams parlors, to new museums, to people-watching, to brunch that evolves into lunch that evolves into tea . 

He is swimming in an ocean of constant Hunter, and the problem with swimming is that you can drown. 

Loving Hunter is not a new affair for him, and he has to keep himself sharp and focused despite those changes, make sure that all this attention doesn’t wound him with false expectations because his love for Hunter is not the same as his love for everything else.

Sure, Fitz does love all of Her creatures, and blah blah blah, as he should. That’s something ingrained in his very essence, but he is more the sort to be in love with the world itself than with the creatures that inhabit it. The delicate infrastructure of astonishing laws is what has fascinated Fitz from the beginning, and that is the path his celestial love blooms. Besides, Hunter is a demon, and everyone in Heaven would scoff at him if he dared ask if _ all creatures, great and small  _ also includes demons.

But that is beside the point because he  _ does  _ love him. Before failed Armageddon, he excused himself saying that he didn’t know how to stop those feelings. Now, he has already moved into the territory of  _ don’t know how to stop and don’t want to either _ .

Loving Hunter is not a new affair for him: it’s a truth that has permeated his stay on Earth all the way since Eden, even when he was still too obtuse to acknowledge it. He wonders, sometimes, if the feeling is an acquired taste; if he loves Hunter because Hunter is his only constant in an ever-changing world that Fitz doesn’t dare love too hard, because he knows it ephemeral. And maybe he is right. Maybe he does love Hunter because he is his cornerstone, his fixed point, his node in the constant undulation of life. The place where he can stand to move the world. It took him almost a century of internal debate to conclude that its condition of being circumstantial doesn’t make that love less transcendental or less meaningful.

Loving Hunter is not a new affair for him, and Fitz has gone already through all the stages natural to newfound feelings, let alone ones tied to a deep sense of guilt: denial, panic, exhilaration, longing, frustration. He has settled in a quiet acceptance for a few decades now: this is who they are and this what they do.

Because he is certain that Hunter doesn’t love him back, and if Armageddon failed to change that, nothing else ever would. Maybe Hunter _can’t_ love him, maybe he doesn’t _want_ to; the reasons are irrelevant. Loving Hunter is not an ungrateful business (not that Fitz could ever define love in selfish terms, but still); even if he doesn’t love him back, Hunter gives him plenty in return with his friendship, with his companionship, with the way he gesticulates while he is retelling a movie, with how he listens intently to Fitz waxing poetic about his latest project or with the way he smiles at him when a child passes them by on the park. All _that_ is what Hunter gives him in return, and it is enough. Fitz couldn’t certainly ask for more. 

He has made peace with that, but spending this much time together puts… ideas in his mind. Ideas that are not at all angelic, ideas that should put the Fear Of Her in him, and yet. 

And yet.

Let’s just say that the fact that his consciousness sounds too much like Hunter is not the only unangelic thing that lives inside his head. 

* * *

Everything would be good and peachy if Fitz only knew how to keep his big, fat,  _ blessed  _ mouth shut. 

Before, he had an excellent good excuse to not act on his feelings: he would never dare put Hunter in danger. But now they have shaken off their respective Head Offices, they have proved that they are free agents, very much on their own side. His flimsy pretext of a selfless reason to keep his cards close to his chest has fallen apart, and Fitz finds himself on the verge of telling him all the time. Now that there is not a metaphorical- and sometimes literal too- sword hanging above their heads, how can anything be left unsaid between them? Angels, he tells himself, are terrible liars for a reason. 

But what should he tell him? He has thought and thought about it, considered every angle and then thought about it a little more; he needs to reach a delicate equilibrium between exposing the content of his heart before it bursts, giving Hunter some very much deserved proof of affection and not sending his demon friend running for the hills in panic. 

Of course, plans are pretty much no use for anything except being thrown out of the window. 

Hunter has decided to close the pub early tonight, and he is serving two beers for them while he chats about the latest action movie he has watched. Fitz is already on his third pint, not enough to be drunk after decades of drinking-practice, but enough to feel comfortably fuzzy around the edges. Hunter places a perfectly poured beer in front of him, and Fitz has gone deaf with the sound of his own heart beating in his ears. The hand he reaches to keep Hunter close is more an instinct than anything else. 

“Hunter,“ he begins, the name treasured for decades strong and sweet on his tongue. 

Hunter looks down at Fitz’s hand on the hollow of his elbow like Fitz has just told him that he has become an atheist. Fitz soldiers on anyway. He has thought over and over about what he wants to say:  _ I’m very glad we can keep on with this friendship. _

But, apparently, his mouth has a mind of its own. ”I love you.” 

He doesn’t have enough time to panic, because of all the possible reactions Hunter could have to Fitz putting his heart in the line, he has chosen to _ snicker _ .

He squeezes Fitz’s hand with his own, once, and this might be what it feels like to be burnt with hellfire. “I know, angel.”

Fitz, slack-jawed and inarticulate, can only reply, “What do you mean you  _ know?” _

Is he hallucinating somehow? Is this his rightfully deserved heavenly punishment? They have done crazy things in the last few months, but maybe an angel loving a demon is tampering with the fabric of the universe a step too far. At least, that’s what it feels like. Whereas Hunter- the bastard- is still smiling while he takes off his sunglasses, his eyes shiny with mist. Fitz moves his hand away. 

“Well, that's what partners do, don't they? Love each other?”

Fitz breathes, in and out. His body doesn’t exactly need the oxygen, but there is something comforting on the repetitive motion while he tries to steady his mind that is going down a never-ending spiral. After several millennia of going through life in this human body, Fitz didn’t think there was a whole spectrum of emotions left for him to experience, and yet, here he is. Hunter is watching him closely, chest heaving, clearly waiting for an answer Fitz doesn’t have.

“We are not partners,” is the only thing he can squeak out.

There is still softness in Hunter’s face while he rolls his eyes, and Fitz doesn’t know if that is a blessing or a damnation. 

“Well, use whatever word suits you best. Which one do you prefer?”

Finally, something he can actually reply! “Friends?”

“Friends. You think we are _friends.”_ Hunter’s voice is not cold, but toneless, the voice he used to recite a lot of the crap Hell had forced him to say over millennia, and Fitz shivers. But then Hunter’s face shifts, an exasperated look that Fitz knows oh, so well. “How can somebody as clever as you be _so dense?_ What would you say next, that we are ‘gals being pals’?”

Well, at least bickering is something they can still do. 

“Don’t be ridiculous! We never said we were  _ anything  _ but friends!”

“We never said we were friends either!” That gives Fitz pause because he is not wrong. Hunter takes his hands, and Fitz looks down at them, bewildered. “Fitz, love. Angel.” The nickname has always been sweet in his mouth, full of fondness and affection, but now it feels like something else entirely. “Think about our relationship in an objective way. Don’t you think everything we have done for each other was an act of love?”

A series of flashes go through his mind, from Hunter bouncing into a church to save his skin to Fitz placing a thermos filled with holy water in Hunter’s hands, full of fear but also full of trust, with everything in between. They have sought each other out, comforted each other, teased each other, challenged each other, drank and laughed and suffered and shared together. He tries to look at all the little moments the way Hunter is telling him he has looked at them, and he can understand his point. 

_ “Oh.” _

Hunter is smiling at him with soft amber eyes, and this could have gone very wrong, and somehow it is going very right. 

“Yes,  _ oh. _ ”

He might need a decade-long nap to process this. Except, well. He just found out he has been dating his best friend for a long, _long_ time, and he has  _ questions. _

“How it is that you never said  _ anything?” _

Hunter shrugs.

“I thought it was pretty clear? No need to muck up something good with feels talk.” He makes a grimace, and Fitz snorts. “That was all those ‘we are on our own side’ and ‘run away with me’ things were all about.” He winces. “But if you didn’t know and you didn’t mean-”

“No.” Fitz cuts him off, a hand on his forearm. “The words we used were different, but the feelings were the same.”

Hunter nods, thoughtful.

“Gotta say, it’s weird having you being so touchy-feely now.”

That is, actually, an interesting remark.

“Why didn’t we touch much, before?” He relishes on that word for a moment,  _ Before. _ They have gone through an almost apocalyptic event just a couple of months ago, and yet Fitz can’t imagine something more worthy of shifting the axes of his existence than this.

Hunter shrugs.

“You never started it-”

“Because I thought you didn’t love me!”

“...anyway, remember when we read that book about the languages of love? Physical intimacy is only  _ one  _ way to show affection, not the  _ only  _ one. We made our own ways.” There is something strange in his eyes that gives Fitz chills. He will ask about it later, but not now. “ We are not humans, Fitz, so why should our love be like theirs?”

Indeed their love is not the same, even if only for the fact that he just spent six thousand years in denial. He rubs his hand against Hunter’s elbow, and Hunter’s lips tremble. If he had any doubts left, the way Hunter is looking at him now doesn’t leave room for any. There is a lot to unpack, a lot to ask and a lot to process, but he has even more pressing matters to attend.

“So we never touched because I was afraid and you were too much of a gentleman.”

Hunter snorts.

“Shit, every time I get called something like ‘gentleman’, I lose a feather of my wings, Fitz.”

Fitz stands up and takes a step around the bar, ignoring what he just said. 

“Would you like to start now, then?”

“Start wha’?”

His hands are trembling from the effort of holding them an inch apart from Hunter’s hips.

“Touching each other.”

Fitz knows him so well that he can see in his eyes the instinct to make a lewd comment, but in the end, Hunter bites his tongue, looks down at Fitz’s hands and when he looks back up, his pupils are dilated enough to almost completely hide the amber of his eyes. 

“Yes, please.”

If you ask Fitz, there are very few things more erotic than being explicitly, certainly wanted. It’s exhilarating and humbling at the same time, and he forces himself to take a deep breath he doesn’t actually need. This is for him, but it’s mostly for Hunter, who spend all these years thinking that Fitz didn’t want to touch him. Hunter- who has been cast down from Heaven and rejected by Hell- deserves to know that he is loved more than any other creature Fitz has met or could ever meet.

Fitz places his hands on top of his shoulders, and Hunter wets his lips: he is probably expecting Fitz to kiss him. But that would be a very human place to start, and he is- don’t tell him- right: they are not human, and their affection doesn’t need to be human-like either.

Fitz has always liked the two inches Hunter’s corporation has on his, the way he looks slightly down at him with a tiny crease to the bow of his lips every time Fitz says something that amuses him, how he places Fitz’s favorite beers on the higher shelves and teases him good-naturedly that he does that so Fitz won’t put him out of business. It’s a small difference, but now that small difference is everything, with Hunter inclined towards him hungrily, his entire body a lean, inviting curve. He uses his leverage on Hunter’s shoulders to pull him closer and kisses Hunter’s forehead.

It earns him a sound that is half a wanton sigh and half a frustrated groan. The reaction spurs him on to glide his lips across Hunter’s temple, the foreign temperature and texture an eruption of sensations on his hungry lips. He finds the serpent tattoo on the high corner of Hunter’s cheek, and rubs his nose against it, a trace of sulfur hitting his nose.

“This okay?” The tip of Hunter’s ear is red like a flame, and his jawbone is trembling. 

The only reply he gets are Hunter’s hands, wide and feverish, stretched across his waist, the tip of his middle fingers pressing against the spot from where Fitz’s wings manifest. It is good they haven’t touched till now, that they have no allegiances left, no need to pretend like the other is not the most important part of their existence; otherwise, he doesn’t think he could have been able to pretend.

He kisses the serpent on its middle curve, both a dare and a promise.

“Fitz.” Hunter begins and ends, a full symphony in just his name, and the tone of his voice sets aflame the last nerve connections that were muted in this human corporation of his, Hunter’s face turned towards him like Fitz is the sun itself.

They have started as far away from each other as two beings could be, Hell and Heaven in between, and they have found their way to each other time and time again. This has been something on the making for six thousand years, and they have waited long enough: there is nothing to keep them apart now, except for the inch between their lips.

Not even thinking of rebellion anymore, Fitz closes the last gap. 

**Author's Note:**

> I... don't know what this it? Sure, I wanted to write a Good Omens AU for these two, but this is not exactly that. I deleted and re-wrote this a handful of times- Fitz wanted to get angsty on me, and I was fixed on not letting him. I also wrote a lot of snippets that didn't find their way here, and this ended up being a sort of mashed up story that doesn't exactly flow if you ask me. But maybe it was supposed to be that way, who knows. 
> 
> Also, yes, of course, Daisy is the AntiChrist.   
**
> 
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